Chapter 677: Divine Goddess

It wasn’t just a simple rush of strength; it was a total awakening of the blood, a tidal wave of vitality that washed her mortal limits clean out of existence.

Deep within her stomach, her sun core didn’t merely swell in size... it deepened into a terrifying, bottomless abyss.

The core pulsed once, sending out an invisible gravitational pull so violent that the surrounding air folded inward.

In one massive, greedy, monstrous gasp, that new abyss devoured every remaining wisp of essence lingering in the hollow.

The stray currents tearing through the forest canopy, the crimson sparks left behind by the shattered boundary, the white mist hovering above the pond... all of it was sucked straight into her chest in a fraction of a second, swallowed whole and locked away beneath that newly forged fifth shell of impenetrable sovereign fire.

Then, the essence storm died.

There was no lingering fade, no slow dispersal into the night air. The howling, ear-splitting vortex that had battered the trees and shaken the earth simply ran out of fuel, cut off at the root.

The violent gale collapsed upon itself, its swirling walls of compressed light breaking apart into millions of glowing, weightless droplets.

They fell in absolute, breathtaking silence, showering down over the limestone rocks, the willow branches, and the still surface of the quiet pond like a warm curtain of golden rain.

The light kissed the torn ground, coating everything in a shimmering, celestial dew, while in the center of the hollow, the newly crowned sovereign hung suspended in the gentle fallout.

Sol slowly released his grip on her ankles, taking two steps back onto the broken ground, his chest heaving as his own core settled back into its resting rhythm.

A faint, satisfied smirk pulled at his lips, wiping a drop of sweat from his forehead.

Above him, Veylara’s body slowly, gracefully descended.

Her sun-kissed skin radiated a deep, terrifyingly dense golden-white luster that made the surrounding moonlight look dull and sickly by comparison.

Her long hair drifted weightlessly over her shoulders, moving without wind, pulsing in sync with an internal rhythm that seemed to demand the submission of the very air around her.

Then, her bare feet touched the damp moss.

THUD.

It was the softest sound imaginable, but the moment her bare soles met the ground, a silent, invisible shockwave rippled out in a perfect circle.

The flattened grass pressed flat against the mud.

The dangling branches of the ancient willow trees shuddered and bent backward, groaning under a sudden spike of astronomical pressure.

The very air turned heavy. It was the kind of suffocating, sovereign weight that made a man feel like a slab of solid granite had been casually set down across his chest.

The surrounding air bent around her form in subtle, visible ripples, the local space subtly bowing to the sheer density of her existence.

The ambient essence within a hundred paces didn’t dare move, freezing in place like terrified thralls awaiting the command of their absolute monarch.

Behind Sol, Zephyra’s wooden staff hit the ground with an unsteady thwack. Even with her deep cultivation and ancient bloodline heritage, the High Shaman took a forced half-step back, her milky-white eyes wide, her chest heaving as she fought against the involuntary urge of her marrow to yield.

"By the first root..." Zephyra breathed, her usually composed, teasing voice hushed with raw, reverent dread. "The pressure... it is completely solid. The fifth layer is fully seated."

Sol stayed rooted where he stood, his jaw clenched, his Layer 3 Peak core roaring like a defiant blast furnace to keep his spine straight.

Unlike Zephyra, he didn’t rely on spiritual lineage or ancestral favors; he dug his bare heels into the dirt, letting the immovable mass of the Great Badger anchor his flesh while his neon-crimson eyes bore into the woman across the pond.

Layer 5, Sol thought, a grim, admiring smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth despite the pressure grinding against his ribs. So this is the ceiling of this damn world broken wide open. She’s an absolute monster now.

Slowly, the golden-white luminescence bathing her skin sank deep beneath her pores.

The blinding aura receded, locking itself inside her body like a chained titan awaiting command.

Veylara lifted her hands. She turned them over under the moonlight, staring down at her own calloused palms, watching the faint, translucent ripples of raw physical gravity that faintly warped the space around her knuckles. She closed her fingers into a fist.

CRACK.

The simple act of clenching her hand displaced the air with the sharp, violent snap of a whip.

A slow, deep breath filled her lungs... a breath so long and steady it sounded like the draft of a cave. Her head tilted back, her neck arching, and when her eyes finally opened, the deep blue of her irises had vanished.

In their place burned twin pools of liquid sapphire fire, encircled by a faint ring of red that mirrored the newly opened layer in her core.

She stood completely naked under the stars, unarmored and bare, yet she looked more invincible than a Valkyrie that wore sixty pounds of heavenly forged golden armour.

Her skin was flawless, glowing with an inner, incandescent warmth that made her look like an ancient goddess stepped down from a forgotten era.

Her obsidian black hair fell across her bare shoulders in rich, heavy waves, and her chest rose and fell in slow, rhythmic, terrifyingly deep cycles.

Her gaze swept across the clearing. It lingered for a heartbeat on the pale body of Zephyra, took in the pulverized rocks and the scorched ground left by the essence funnel, and finally landed squarely on Sol.

She took a deep look at his body: his skin was crisscrossed with violent, shallow cuts and mottled with heavy, blooming bruises.

Dark crimson blood coated his chest, ribs, and forearms in thick, glistening streaks, dripping sluggishly as if he had just crawled his way out of a literal blood bath.

Yet beneath the gore, his broad chest rose and fell in slow, unhurried pulls of air, clad only in a torn fern leaf knotted around his hip with a stray weed, his weight leaning back on one heel with that exact same casual, irreverent defiance he gave to warlords and gods alike.

The divine, untouchable coldness in her sapphire eyes cracked.